Emma Frost was born into a wealthy old Boston mercantile family that arrived from England in the 1600s. The second of three daughters, Emma also had an older brother named Christian who had turned to substance abuse as an escape from the drudgery of his life. Unknown to their family or themselves, the three Frost sisters were mutants whose telepathic abilities matured upon reaching puberty.

When it came time for their father to choose a worthy heir to the family fortune, Christian was automatically dismissed due to his drug problem. Whilst the older sister Adrienne seemed the most obvious choice, the father chose Emma. Surprisingly, she refused, choosing to make her own way through life. She was homeless and on her own for a time.

Emma ultimately inherited a good deal of wealth, but most of her large fortune resulted from her professional success. She ascended rapidly to the upper echelon of the business world on the strength of her intelligence, drive, and personal charm, as well as the secret use of her mental powers. Also, at some point, the Dark Beast met Emma, and helped her rise to wealth and power.

Eventually, Emma became majority stockholder of a multi-billion dollar conglomerate principally involved in electronics and transportation – both the building of ships and aircraft, and their use for freight and passenger conveyance. Despite her relative youth, she was named chairwoman of the board and chief executive officer of the rechristened Frost International. She also became headmistress and chairwoman of the board of trustees of the Massachusetts Academy - a college preparatory school for students in grades seven through twelve located in the Berkshire Mountains in Snow Valley, Massachusetts.

Emma's success caught the attention of the Hellfire Club, an elite social organization consisting of the world's wealthiest and most powerful figures. When she learned that the club was hiring dancers, she promptly auditioned and used her telepathic talents to enhance her performance in their eyes. Unlike the other females in the Hellfire Club, Emma was never uncomfortable with the strict dress code that required female members to wear lingerie at all times. She believed her revealing wardrobe to be one of many weapons in her arsenal, one that gave her an instant advantage over men.

Frost quickly became an ally of Sebastian Shaw, a member of the club's Council of the Chosen who were secretly conspiring to achieve world domination through economic and political means. At the time, the leaders of the club and council – its foremost Lords Cardinal, whose titles corresponded to the names of chess pieces – were White King Edward Buckman and White Queen Paris Seville.

Buckman threw the council's support behind Project: Armageddon, scientist Steven Lang's program to construct mutant-hunting Sentinel robots. Aware of Shaw's genetic disposition, Buckman told him the initiative's intent was to capture mutants as a means of helping the council attain power. Using her psionic powers, Emma learned that the project's actual purpose was the annihilation of all genetic deviants. After Shaw's lover, Lourdes Chantel, was murdered by one of the Sentinels, Shaw and Frost staged a coup that saw them seize control of the Council of the Chosen, which they renamed the Inner Circle. Shaw took the title of Black King, and Frost became the new White Queen.

Under Shaw and Frost's leadership, mutants dominated the Inner Circle. To strengthen the Club's power base, Emma recruited genetically gifted youngsters and helped them hone their abilities at her school. Most of these students were members of the Hellions, Emma's first mutant super-team. She initially encountered the outlaw band of heroic mutant adventurers known as the X-Men when she unsuccessfully attempted to recruit young Kitty Pryde, the phase-shifting mutant then known as Shadowcat. Subsequently, Emma crossed paths with the X-Men – and their protégés, the New Mutants – on a number of occasions, often as their adversary. Later, the X-Men joined with the Hellions to protect the White Queen from the time-traveling terrorist named Trevor Fitzroy. However, the madman's brutal assault plunged Emma into a deep coma and brought about the Hellions' untimely demise.

Assissted by Professor X, Emma eventually recovered and resumed her role as headmistress of the academy. Ably assisted by Sean Cassidy, the sonically empowered former X-Man known as Banshee, she set out to train a new crop of young mutants: Generation X. When the sinking stock market dealt Frost International a major blow, Emma swallowed her pride and sought the help of her older sister, Adrienne, who agreed to support her sibling's flagging financial interests only if she were named co-headmaster. But Adrienne's power play did not wind down when Emma acceded to her request, nor did it end when she supplanted her sister as the Hellfire Club's White Queen. Only after Adrienne telepathically incited a riot at the school did Emma find a way to upset her ascension: the way of the gun. Emma shot and killed her sister, thereby laying claim to Adrienne's inheritance.

Following the dissolution of Generation X and the closure of the Massachusetts Academy, Emma moved to the island nation of Genosha where she began teaching mutant children again. Soon after, a Sentinel attack wiped out Genosha's entire mutant population. Emma was found by the X-Men alive in the rubble, having undergone a secondary mutagenic change that allowed her to survive the onslaught: a diamond form. Following this incident, Emma came to teach at the Xavier Institute, and soon took on the responsibility of personally mentoring the telepathic quintuplets known as the Stepford Cuckoos.

While quelling a riot at the school, one of the Stepford Cuckoos, Sophie, is killed and the others reject Emma's mentorship, blaming her for the death. They attempt to get revenge by telepathically contacting Jean about Emma's and Cyclops' psychic affair. In the aftermath of the riot, Jean catches Frost and Summers in bed together in their minds. In a rage, she unleashes her reignited Phoenix powers and psychically humiliates Frost. Afterward, Emma is found physically shattered in her diamond form. As Bishop and Sage investigate the crime, Jean uses her increasingly growing Phoenix powers to reassemble Frost's body, acknowledging that Emma has genuinely fallen in love with Scott. Revived, Emma is able to name her attempted murderer – Esme of the Stepford Cuckoos, who had mind-controlled fellow student Angel Salvadore into shooting Frost in her single flaw with a diamond bullet, under the direction of Xorn.

Jean is later killed by Xorn, and a guilt ridden Cyclops is unable to move on with his life and with Emma. This results in a dystopian alternate future, which is prevented by Jean, reborn as the White Phoenix of the Crown, by urging Cyclops to start a new life with Emma. Despite the criticism from their teammates and family members, Cyclops and Emma Frost become lovers, and the two take over the school after Professor Xavier steps down; Emma becomes co-headmistress with Cyclops and adviser to a new team of Hellions. She develops an antagonistic relationship with fellow teacher Kitty Pryde and the daughter of Jean and Cyclops, Rachel Grey, who was furious at her father for starting a relationship with Emma immediately after Jean's death. However, the two seemingly reached a truce when Emma offers to help Rachel hone her telepathic abilities.

At this time Scott decided that the X-Men needed to play a more proactive role in emergency rescue and aid, and thus garner attention on mutants in a more positive light where mutant abilities are used for the good of people. Scott therefore handpicked a team in order to get out into the world more. Scott chose Beast for his intelligence, Emma for her telepathy in the field, Wolverine because of his fighting experience, and Shadowcat as the public face of mutants. The remaining teams, Scott left in the charge of Havok and Storm. The teams' first mission was an alien, named Ord of the Breakworld, during which the team rescued the recently resurrected Colossus and destroyed a cure for mutants.

Not long after, the X-Men's Danger Room became sentient, attacking the X-Men and seeking to kill Professor Xavier. Calling itself "Danger", "she" revealed that Professor Xavier knew she had been self-aware, since the Shi'ar technology was installed in the Danger Room years ago, but chose to ignore her, effectively, inhumanely using her only to train his teams of X-Men. After her defeat on the island of Genosha, the X-Men abandoned Professor Xavier on the island in disgust, and Cyclops stated that he no longer needed Professor Xavier's input at the school or with the team. Shortly after returning to the school, Emma and the rest of the X-Men were teleported away by S.W.O.R.D. to combat Ord on the Breakworld.

School’s Out / High School Never Ends

Emma and the rest of the X-Men return to Xavier’s school to find that the reserve members of the X-Men (Nightcrawler and Angel) were put into a temporal coma by a group called the Travelers. A group of seniors at the school took over and ultimately defeated the Travelers. Scott reveals that the Board of Trustees of Xavier’s school had secretly built a new west coast school, Academy X. Considering the relative success the seniors had in running Xavier’s school, Scott offers them the chance to run Academy X.

Welcome to Paradise / Hotel California

Storm joins the X-Men just before the team’s next mission: an extradimensional trip through a “ghost box” to fight a group intent on invading the X-Men’s reality (“Ghost Boxes”). Emma accompanies the team.

Meanwhile, Emma’s younger sister, Cordelia, becomes a teacher at a new west coast mutant school run by Mystique. When the eXalts come into conflict with the staff of Academy M, Cordelia is unable to use her emotion controlling powers on Samantha. Samantha realizes that she is related to Cordelia, and eventually learns she is Emma’s daughter. When Emma was homeless as a teenager, she conceived a child with the shape-changing mutant Mystique and left it in a Boston orphanage. This girl eventually grew up to become Phantasma.

My Generation / Children’s Crusade

Emma and the X-Men travel to Africa to deal with a mysterious mutagen that is causing mutations among newborn children. They find that this, too, is linked to ghost boxes (“Xenogenesis”).

Valley of Lost Souls / Empire of the Damned

After a falling-out with Academy X over their decision not to allow Bobby (“Iceman”) to reclaim half of his mutant powers from the artificially created mutant girl, Agape, Emma helps fight Selene during the Necrosha event. During the battle, Nightcrawler and Iceman face Selene, and Nightcrawler is killed. Many at Xavier’s school blame Academy X staff for Kurt’s death, including Emma.

Despite blaming the Academy X staff for Nightcrawler’s death, Emma agrees to help the eXalts by using Cerebro. She searches for the missing Dane and Lucius. Lucius had become infected with the techno-organic virus and had kidnapped Dane. Unfortunately, the two mutants were hidden from Cerebro’s scans.

Powers and Abilities

Telepathy: Emma has the traditional telepathic abilities of broadcasting and receiving thoughts, mind-control, altering perceptions and memories, projection of offensive blasts of psionic energy causing mental pain or unconsciousness, astral projection, mind switching, brain engram modification, mental sedation of unconscious victims, induction of mental pain by touch, and limited psychometry. Frost is also very adept at performing 'psychic surgery': the utilization of pin-pointed psionic energy to exert absolute control over individual brain functions such that the physical form can be manipulated (i.e., injuries healed, disabilities repaired, the nervous system, etc). Frost's abilities rival that of Charles Xavier. Frost has been cited as a "world-class telepath" and a "psi of the highest order".

Latent Telekinesis: Emma was also stated to be a potential telekinetic. During the Onslaught Saga, Emma unintentionally levitated some utensils while facing a nightmare. It was later revealed that this phenomenon is one of Frost's powers that potentially lies within her mutation.

Organic Diamond Form: As a result of undergoing a body-wide secondary mutation, Frost now possesses the ability to transform her body into a flexible organic diamond form. In many ways, this is similar to Colossus' organic steel form. She must transform all parts of her body, rather than selectively transforming certain areas and can remain in this form for an indeterminate amount of time. If she is rendered unconscious, Frost's body will automatically transform into its normal state. This transformation also alters Frost's personality, causing her to become rather cold hearted and to lose her empathy for others. Emma does not have access to her telepathy while in her diamond form.

Superhuman Strength: In her diamond form, Frost's physical strength is increased to superhuman levels. At her peak, she is able to lift approximately 2 tons.

Superhuman Stamina: While transformed, Frost's muscle tissue becomes infinitely more efficient than the organic musculature of normal humans, or most other organic beings for that matter. Her muscles produce almost no fatigue toxins during physical activity, granting her almost limitless superhuman stamina, or at least until or unless she is forced to resume her normal state.

Superhuman Durability: Frost's diamond form renders her highly resistant to most forms of physical injury. She is able to resist great impact forces, such as being repeatedly struck with superhuman force, without being injured. Her body is also resistant to temperature extremes, able to withstand temperatures as cold as -320 degrees Fahrenheit or as hot as approximately 7,362 degrees Fahrenheit before her form begins to melt. Frost also requires no food, water or oxygen in her diamond form.

Expert Technician: Emma Frost is highly skilled in electronic theory and electronics and has learned how to build devices that can amplify psionic energy and utilize psionic energy for various effects. She devised the mechanism by which Mastermind projected his illusions directly into the mind of the Phoenix Force.

Defensive Training: Emma Frost is an above average athlete and has had some training in hand-to-hand combat. During a training session in which Emma did not have access to her powers, Banshee attempted to make an example of her. Emma quickly, efficiently, and easily dispatched Banshee, much to his embarrassment.